Making Music Matter

Their school day ended 40 minutes ago, but nearly sixty students remain seated in Andrea Peterson’s classroom, totally absorbed in a voice exercise as part of choir practice.

“OK, put out your fist,” directs Peterson (‘96). “I’m going to sing the first line of the song, and when you give me a thumbs up, that’s when I can breathe. ...And please let me breathe. I’m pregnant.”

The students giggle, then complete the exercise and discover that their teacher requires only one breath to sing the line. “Okay, now you try singing it,” she says.

Peterson is the vocal and instrumental music teacher at Monte Cristo Elementary School in Granite Falls, Washington. This is her tenth year there—and what a year it has been. In October 2006, Peterson was named Washington State Teacher of the Year. In January 2007, she became one of four finalists for National Teacher of the Year. And she’s about to become a parent.

“It’s been pretty crazy,” she admits. Peterson jokes that music and teaching are in her genes. Her father is a high school teacher and her two brothers are musicians. But when she entered college, Peterson chose the pre-med route. “I really thought I wanted to be in sports medicine,” she says, “but now I think I just wanted to be different than everyone else in my family.” 

A freshman-year visit to her brothers, who were enrolled in a music education program in Colorado, changed her mind. “I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed sitting in on their classes,” Peterson recalls. “I realized it was in my blood and I couldn’t deny it.”

Peterson earned her BA in music education from the UW in December 1996 and immediately began looking for work. She hoped to teach band at a Seattle-area high school, but teaching jobs are hard to come by in mid-winter, so when she learned of an opening in rural Granite Falls she grabbed it.

“My thought was that I’d do it for a year and then be more marketable for a job in Seattle,” admits Peterson. “Butonce I began teaching, I found that I loved the kids and the community and the administration.”

The job required teaching high school jazz and concert band, middle school band, and general music classes at the elementary school. Peterson spent her days shuttling among the three schools, working with students at every grade level. “That was an insane schedule,” she says. “I did that for two and a half years.”

Her effort paid off, and the number of Granite Falls students participating in music skyrocketed, leading the district to create a separate band teacher position. Everyone thought Peterson would take the job, including Peterson. “But in the end I decided to teach elementary school,” she says. “I saw that with my help these students could be better prepared for music opportunities in middle school. When you really start to understand what teaching is, you realize that you’re not doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for the kids.”

Peterson has never regretted her decision. Ask her about her students, and she lights up. “They have boundless energy,” she says. “They make me laugh every day. And they will try anything.”

The same can be said of Peterson. She has found ways to tie music education with general education, collaborating with other teachers on special student performances that combine music with topics being explored in class, from Shakespeare to ocean habitat to Lewis and Clark. 

Last year, students in grades four, five, and six wrote and performed a musical based on a book they were reading in their general classroom. The eight-week lesson included discussions of themes, the use of literary devices, and the choice of music that would be most appropriate for the story, culminating in an evening performance. 

“Students tell me that when they are in the middle of one of these projects, they don’t see the music class as separate from their other class,” says Peterson. “It’s all connected. As a result, students are more engaged in both classes.” 

After a program tied to the Lewis and Clark curriculum, a teacher told Peterson that her students had never done so well on their fourth grade test. “She commented that the strange thing was that the students were singing softly the whole time they were taking the test,” recalls Peterson. “Well, one of the songs we did was chock full of facts about Lewis and Clark. That still makes me smile.”

The students aren’t the only ones who benefit from this approach. Peterson notes that while many schools “think of the music teacher as off in a corner and not as a ‘real’ teacher,” she is viewed as integral to her school and community. “Here I’ve been given so much respect,” she says. 

Evidently so. It was her principal and superintendent who nominated Peterson for Teacher of the Year honors. “If you watch Andrea teach, or watch her direct students during a performance, you are truly seeing something extraordinary,” wrote Granite Falls Superintendent Joel Thaut in his nomination letter.

Peterson was surprised when she was chosen as the regional winner and downright shocked when she was chosen as Washington Teacher of the Year. “I have never been that surprised in my whole life,” she recalls. She’ll have to wait until late April to learn whether she has been chosen as National Teacher of the Year.

She insists that she knows five or ten teachers in her own school who are more deserving of the honor. But after meeting winners from other states and hearing their stories, Peterson has concluded that “this award is partly about telling your story. And I just have a better story than some people. I have a great school district and wonderful teachers to work with, and we share a vision. Mostly, this makes me very proud to teach in Granite Falls.”